Narrative Voice Structure in Kole Omotoso’s The Edifice

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Kole Omotoso’s The Edifice in which he exposes the themes of insensitivity, callousness, aggressiveness, oppression, marginalization and racial discrimination of the whites against the black people successfully. It is clear that the most important and highly unique technique that the writer uses to advantage and which projects the theme of the novel forward is the one of conversational speech which contributes highly to the success of the novel. This explains the reason the present writer is picking the novel out of all Omotoso’s novels because it makes it more prone to linguistic analysis more than most African literary works. Using linguistic stylistic analytical tool of narrative voice structure and focusing particularly on free direct speech and free direct thought, this paper examines the themes of racial discrimination and oppression of the whites against the black people in the novel. From the analysis, the paper concludes that the implication of this racial discrimination is that all the expressions used in the novel against the black people by the whites are exaggerated, hyperbolic and highly calculated to depict African race in bad light.